John Grundy's Home Page
Professor John Grundy
Australian Laureate Fellow and Professor of Software Engineering
Faculty of Information Technology
Monash University
Melbourne
Australia
About Me
I am currently Australian Laureate Fellow and Professor of Software Engineering at Monash University. I hold the BSc(Hons), MSc, PhD and DSc degrees, all in Computer Science, from the University of Auckland. I am a Fellow of Automated Software Engineering, Fellow of Engineers Australia, Certified Professional Engineer, Engineering Executive, Senior Member of the ACM and Senior Member of the IEEE.
I lead the "Human-centric Software Engineering" - HumaniSE - research lab.
In my 5 year Laureate Fellowship I will be researching new approaches to engineering software systems that fully take into account the "human" aspects of end users and team members. This project aims to find fundamentally new ways to capture and use human-centric software requirements during model-driven software engineering and verifying that systems meet these requirements. There are major issues with misaligned software applications in terms of accessibility, usability, emotions, personality, age, gender, and culture. We aim to address these through new conceptual foundations and modelling techniques for their support during software engineering. The intended outcomes are enhanced theory, models, tools and capability for next-generation software engineering with these critical elements. Significant benefits are expected to include greatly improved software quality, developer productivity and cost savings.
Previously I was the Senior Deputy Dean for the Faculty of Information Technology. I took up that role at the beginning of February 2018 when I moved from Deakin University. I was the 2IC to the Executive Dean, Faculty of IT. I worked with the Dean, Faculty Manager, Deputy Deans, Associate Deans and Group Leads to help lead and manage the Faculty, including people development and management, strategic planning, operations, finances, research and teaching leadership, engagement, …
Until February 2018 I was Pro Vice-Chancellor ICT Innovation and Translation at Deakin University and an Alfred Deakin Professor. I provided strategic leadership of ICT research across the university with an emphasis on building collaborative teams across groups and disciplines, building teams to tackle larger problems and working with diverse stakeholders and partners on various externally funded projects.
Prior to that I was at the Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia and was the Dean of the School of Software and Electrical Engineering and the Director of the large Research Centre Swinburne University Centre for Computing and Engineering Software Systems (SUCCESS). I was previously the Head of Computer Science and Software Engineering at Swinburne and briefly Deputy Dean for the previous Faculty of ICT.
Before coming to Australia at the end of 2009 I was Head of Department for Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
From 2014-2017 I was also a Senior Principal Researcher with Data61.
My teaching is mostly in the area of team projects, software requirements and design, software processes, distributed systems, and programming. My research is mostly in the area of software tools and techniques, software architecture, model-driven software engineering, visual languages, software security engineering, service-based and component-based systems and user interfaces. My work is generally pretty applied and I do consulting work with a range of companies. These have included, among many others, Thales Australia, CA Labs, XSol Ltd, Orion Health Ltd, Peace Software Ltd, and Whitecloud Systems Ltd.
I have been an academic for approximately 29 years and previously worked in the IT industry as a Programmer/Analyst and as a consultant. Positions have included:
2020 - 2025 - Australian Laureate Fellow and Professor of Software Engineering, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
2018 - 2020 - Senior Deputy Dean, Faculty of Information Technology and Professor of Software Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
2016 - 2018 - Pro Vice-Chancellor, ICT Innovation & Translation and Alfred Deakin Professor of Software Engineering, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
2014 - 2016 - Dean of the School of Software and Electrical Engineering, Director of the Centre for Computing and Engineering Software Systems and Professor of Software Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
mid-2013 - end 2013 - Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies, Director of the Centre for Computing and Engineering Software Systems and Professor of Software Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
2010 - mid-2013 – Head of Computer Science & Software Engineering, Director of the Centre for Computing and Engineering Software Systems and Professor of Software Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
2008 & 2009 - Head of Department, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Professor of Software Engineering, University of Auckland, New Zealand
2006 & 2007 - Deputy Head of Department - Research, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Professor of Software Engineering, University of Auckland, New Zealand
2002-04 - Director (Head) of Software Engineering and Professor of Software Engineering, Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand
1999-2001 - Senior Lecturer & Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand
1993-99 - Lecturer & Senior Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, University of Waikato, New Zealand
1988-90 - Programmer/Analyst, 5GL International Ltd
I was president of COmputing Research and Education (CORE) for 2013 and 2014. I was on the ARC College of Experts (2019-2021). I was the Chair of the ARC 2018 Engagement and Impact Assessment (EI 2018) Science and Technology panel. I was on the ARC College of Experts (2015-17) and the New Zealand MBIE Smart Ideas and High Value Manufacturing and Services Panels (2014-2019). I was on the Mathematics, Information and Computing Sciences (MIC) ARC ERA 2012 Research Evaluation Committee, and previously on the New Zealand FRST Expert Review and Post-doctoral Fellowships panels (2005-2009).
I was very honoured to be awarded the 2014 IEEE Technical Council on Software Engineering Distinguished Education award - see my own PhD supervisors comments on this here.
I was very honoured to be awarded the 2023 ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Service Award and the 2023 CORE Distinguished Service Award.
I was made a Lero Parnas Fellow in 2023.
I did all of my degrees - BSc(Hons), MSc and PhD in the Department of Computer Science, University of Auckland.
Additionally, I was awarded the Doctor of Science (DSc) from the University of Auckland in 2023.
I attended Papatoetoe High School in Auckland, New Zealand, where I was the Dux (top of year) of my year.
I love teaching and believe it is one of the best things, if not the best thing, about being an academic. An excellent place to find a wide range of teaching, research development, and academic career development resources is Rick Reiss's "Tomorrow's Professor" mailing list and web site. See http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/tomprof/postings.php
I have taught a wide range of software engineering, computer science and information systems courses in my career. I have specialised in "project based learning", specifically project-based courses where students work in small-ish teams on a semester or term-long project. More...
My vision in research is to "make Software Engineering more like traditional Engineering disciplines" - by leveraging human-centric visual modelling approaches to model, reason about and generate complex software systems. To this end, my research has focused on software engineering, particularly software engineering tools and associated methods. I have also worked most recently in the areas of domain-specific visual languages (DSVLs) and model-driven engineering methods and tools. Previously I worked in the areas of aspect-oriented software development, software architecture, process-centred tools, user interfaces - especially model-driven, multi-device, sketch-based and web-based diagramming UIs, and visual languages. I have also written some papers about software engineering, computer science and Information Systems engineering education.
Current projects include the Visual Wiki platform for knowledge engineering, Marama meta-tools and Software Process and Product Improvement projects. More...
I am interested in supervising topics in (but not limited to):
human-centric issues in software engineering - personality, emotions, gender, age, disability and any other human factor impacts on software usage, requirements engineering, design, testing, project management, ...
domain-specific visual languages and modelling tools for... almost anything :-)
almost anything to do with software tools i.e. if you can build an innovative tool for it, I am interested!! :-)
smart homes, digital health and smart city solutions
mining software repositories, especially testing-related data, and requirements and architecture-related data
model-driven engineering of apps, e-health, smart city and cloud applications
model-driven approaches to security engineering
innovative approaches to software engineering and computer science education and training, especially project-based, team-based and industry-based (ideally all three!)
Please have a look at my Research and Publications pages to get a feel for the work I do. See my Research Students page for current PhD projects with scholarships available.
A list of my publications can be found here.
You may also find some of my papers @ Google Scholar or DBLP or MS Academic or Arnetminer or ACM Digital Library or IEEE Digital Library ...
I have given a number of talks over the years, some very specific; some very general. I will collect up some of these in PDF format (maybe even audio/podcast when time permits :-) ) and add off this link. More...
Advice...
I have carried out many leadership and administration roles - another area I (mostly!) enjoy. A few resources below:
The Department Chair - excellent resource for academic Heads
Some research wisdom from Alan Bundy et al
Software Engineering vs Computer Science - some great insights from Ewan Tempero
An (old) talk of my own covering a range of SE topics I work(ed) on
What I think is an excellent blog on various topics academic and otherwise by Anthony Finkelstein @ UCL
Great Software Engineering conference info from Tao Xie
CORE Conference Portal and Journal Portal
How to write a good research proposal from Simon Peyton Jones
Another really nice academic blog I like, The Thesis Whisperer, by Inger Mewburn @ ANU
Great technical writing advice from Gernot Heiser
Various excellent Guidelines for graduate research practice from the Australian Council of Graduate Research
From my own PhD advisor, Prof John Hosking, advice on creating your own research agenda and our article on the role of the academic in software innovation.
And from myself:
Some academic promotion advice - interestingly, by far the most popular page on this site...! ;-)
Some tips for reviewing papers - and some anti-tips :)
Developing an academic career PDF
Some grant-writing tips for ARC schemes PDF (a bit old now!), and some aimed at advice to PhDs/post-docs PDF
Research methods in ASE PDF
Supervision tips for very busy people PDF
Developing a research plan
Is Software Engineering REALLY Engineering? - my views!! (hint: yes!)
Is (Model-driven) Software Engineering REALLY Engineering? - my views!!! (hint: definitely yes!!)
Various other advice talks for Early Career Researchers
Examples of industry advisory board charters and some advice for setting these up
Contact:
Email: john dot grundy at monash dot edu
Phone: +61 3 9905 8854 (My office)
Phone: +61 3 9905 5200 (Faculty Office)
Fax: +61 3 9905 5159 (fax)
Office Location:
Faculty of IT
Room 215, 20 Exhibition Walk
("Woodside Building")
Monash University Clayton Campus
Clayton
VIC 3800
Australia
Postal Address:
Faculty of IT
Monash University
Clayton Campus
25 Exhibition Walk
Clayton
VIC 3800
Australia
My lab site:
Memberships:
Fellow of Automated Software Engineering (FASE)
Senior Member ACM
Senior Member IEEE
CORE President 2013-14; Exec 2015-19
Alumni:
Former staff: